Lord, thou hast been our refuge

One of the things I’ve had the chance to do during lockdown is to go through some of our webcasts from previous years. In doing so I came across a performance we gave seven years ago of ‘Lord, thou hast been our refuge’ by Vaughan Williams. As well as being moved by Vaughan Williams’ spine-tingling music, I was struck by how relevant its sentiment was for today.

The piece opens with a semi-chorus singing words from Psalm 90, “Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another”, against a backdrop of the main choir singing “O God, our help in ages past”, Isaac Watts’ paraphrase of those same words. The Watts text is sung to its customary hymn tune St Anne, slowed right down to portray the timelessness of God.

The psalm reassures us of God’s steady presence through all of life’s challenges: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, Thou art God” and “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday”.

The music was composed in the years following the First World War and Watts’ lines “Our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home” must have taken on fresh poignancy at that time. Perhaps they do for us today as well, as we emerge from lockdown.

The full text is reproduced below and you can hear the performance here:

This was the anthem sung during Communion at our 10am Eucharist on the last day of the choir year for the boys, Lay Vicars and Choral Scholars in July 2013.

Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another.
Before the mountains were brought forth
or ever the earth and the world were made,
Thou art God from everlasting and world without end.
Thou turnest man to destruction; again Thou sayest:
Come again, ye children of men.
For a thousand years in Thy sight are
but as yesterday; seeing that is past as a watch in the night.

O God our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come.
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

As soon as thou scatterest them, they are even as asleep,
and fade away suddenly like the grass.
In the morning it is green and groweth up,
but in the evening it is cut down and withered.
For we consume away in thy displeasure,
and are afraid at thy wrathful indignation.
For when thou art angry, all our days are gone,
we bring our years to an end, as a tale that is told.
The days of our age are threescore years and ten:
and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years,
yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow.
So passeth it away, and we are gone.
Turn thee again, O Lord, at the last.
Be gracious unto thy servants.
O satisfy us with thy mercy, and that soon.
So shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life.

Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another.
Before the mountains were brought forth
or ever the earth and the world were made,
Thou art God from everlasting and world without end.

And the glorious Majesty of the Lord be upon us.
Prosper Thou, O prosper Thou the work of our hands upon us.
O prosper Thou our handy work.